The Diatonic Major and Minor Scales

     The first diatonic scales we will be looking at are the natural major and minor. Scales can be classified as being major or minor, depending on the third interval between the tonic and the mediant – a major third is associated to a major scale, and a minor third to a minor scale.

     The natural major scale is built by making sure that we have whole-steps between every other degree, exception made between the 3^rd – 4^th and 7^th – 8^th degrees – it corresponds to the distance between all the white keys in a piano starting with the note C:

     And this will be the framework we use to build any major scale:

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     The diatonic minor scale is built by starting on the 6^th degree of the major scale, and still using the same notes. By changing the relative position of the scale degrees, we also change where the half-steps are. In the case of the natural minor, we get half-steps between the 2^nd – 3^rd and 5^th – 6^th degrees. The same interval structure applies to all minor scales:

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